Tooth of Franz Muller: 19th century

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Tooth of Franz Muller. Franz Müller shocked the travelling public by committing the first murder on a railway train in July 1864. His victim was Mr Briggs, a Lombard Street bank clerk who was on his way home to Hackney on a North London Railway train from Fenchurch Street. Briggs was brutally beaten and thrown from the blood-stained carriage onto the track near Victoria Park. His gold-rimmed eyeglasses and gold watch and chain were missing. Müller fled across the Atlantic but was later apprehended. His execution attracted a crowd of 50,000. Small circular windows later installed in the partitions between railway compartments, making it possible to see what one's neighbours were doing, became known as 'Müller's lights'. In 1884 Müller's body was lifted from its grave to bury another corpse alongside it. This tooth fell from his skull and was later presented to the Museum.